Dynamic Reconfiguration and Virtual Memory Limits

The dynamic reconfiguration (DR) feature available on the Enterprise 10000, Sun Fire 15K, and Sun Fire 12K systems has limited impact on the virtual memory limits imposed on lnodes. Specifically, DR makes it possible to add or remove physical memory from the system while the system is up and running. (The system's pool of virtual memory includes all of the physical memory, plus the swap space configured into the system.) Additionally, the swap(1M) command can be used on any Solaris system to add (-a) or delete (-d) swap space from the system. Thus, the total amount of virtual memory can grow or shrink during operation.

This has an indirect impact on the virtual memory limits imposed by Solaris Resource Manager. Because virtual memory is managed in absolute units (rather than shares), the effective limits do not change when the system's resources change during operation. (Note that this behavior is different from the dynamic reconfiguration of processors, as discussed in Dynamic Reconfiguration.)